As thousands gather at Africa’s Travel Indaba this week, it’s time for a frank assessment of South Africa’s tourism recovery, which, if the plethora of articles are to be believed, has been very bullish.

Numbers don’t lie, however. And as a trained economist, I am always drawn to data and statistics, and the truth is that our performance has been lacklustre at best. Reaching only 80% of our non-African pre-COVID arrivals from key source markets is not a cause for celebration. Rather, a wake-up call for urgent action.

When regional competitors like Kenya and Tanzania are surging ahead with arrivals exceeding 2019 levels, we cannot afford to pat ourselves on the back for mediocre results. It’s time to face reality and change course to accelerate our tourism growth.

I attempt to do just that by offering some humble (and by no means exhaustive) thoughts on how ‘we’ (the emphasis on the tourism collective) can achieve this together. Actions we can take as an industry, not exogenous issues such as visa regimes and vehicle licensing.

Look at the data

The numbers speak for themselves. While Cape Town and our top-end game lodges have fared quite well, the broader South African landscape tells a different story.

In 2023, arrivals from our key source markets – the UK, Germany and France – reached only 80% 75% and 70% of 2019 levels, respectively. These figures are concerning, particularly when contrasted with the performance of our East African counterparts. Kenya, which has dramatically simplified its visa process, saw arrivals soar to 142% of 2019 levels, while Tanzania recorded an impressive 120%.

The first quarter of 2024 offers a glimmer of hope, with arrivals from the US, our best-performing market, reaching 99% of 2019 levels for the same period. The UK and Germany also showed improvement, with 90% and 97% respectively.

However, growth from France, our fourth-largest market, remains sluggish at just 72%. While we are moving in the right direction, these figures underscore the urgent need for a more proactive and strategic approach to accelerating our tourism recovery.

It’s encouraging to see some positive trends emerging in the first quarter of 2024. However, we must not allow these glimmers of hope to lull us into complacency. And the fundamental question remains: if we continue the same approach we’ve taken over the past decade, can we realistically expect to achieve significantly different results? It’s all about ‘how’ we identify new growth areas and actively pursue these with clear, simple and aligned game plans.

Getting stuck into the ‘how’

One such example was last year’s establishment of structured collaboration between the Tourism Business Council of South Africa and South African Tourism. We focused on the six main source markets and several special-interest segments such as golf, adventure, and youth tourism.

For each market we created a clear game plan or strategy, which now requires effective communication and execution through joint task teams.  Similar strategies must also be developed for other niche markets, such as gastronomy and birding.

So, how do we leverage the work that has already begun?

For the six main source markets with ‘game plans’, the structured engagement needs to be revitalised and accelerated.

The point of departure is a comprehensive market mapping of key source markets, led by SA Tourism, to target untapped market segments. For example, for the key North American market, a potential growth area is to engage the mid-market travellers who visit long-haul destinations like Australia but overlook South Africa.

In the market-mapping exercise, we would identify the countries and market segments they target and can execute campaigns targeting operators that are not currently promoting South Africa but enjoy significant mid-market business with competing destinations.  

Then, it’s time to reconvene structured engagement and task forces for the UK and Germany, two crucial markets where recovery has been slow. An activity that immediately springs to mind is the establishment of a campaign capturing the ‘value’ message, given the current favourable rate of exchange for these two markets.

While the idea was mooted last year, it has yet to be actively pursued. Notably, there is also a loss of expertise among overseas operators selling South Africa – a gap easily bridged through targeting training programmes.

We lag behind our competitor, Australia, when it comes to our performance in the China and India source markets – two of the fastest-growing and largest outbound markets globally. Our challenge with these predominantly lies in our visa regime.

We cannot, however, wait for Home Affairs to have the necessary epiphany on this topic. Our private-sector task forces for these markets have initiated a cogent game plan on how to achieve growth through savvy tactical initiatives in the short term. These simply need to be executed.

Air access is a further critical enabler and catalyst of tourism growth. Discussions with and approaches to airline stakeholders for the creation of new routes to South Africa have historically missed an inbound tourism perspective, a gap that needs redressing. The unlocking of the mid-market in North America provides a fertile opportunity to work more collectively in this crucial area.

Lastly, to gain clearer industry insights, we need to refine our arrival measurement to disaggregate leisure tourism from other categories, such as VFR (visiting friends and relatives) and business tourism.

Our barometer at a macro level, needs to have veracity and not be a bundled number so we can provide a clear and truthful picture, particularly for businesses operating in specific markets. This includes the reporting of our repeater rate, which we believe anecdotally and intuitively to be incredibly high.

This is particularly important because South Africa’s high repeater rates are a valuable asset that can and must be leveraged through targeted campaigns, particularly as we struggle with high awareness and low conversion. By engaging with our most passionate advocates, we can drive word-of-mouth referrals and inspire more travellers to discover South Africa.

Tourism Minister Patricia de Lille and the previous board of SA Tourism have done commendable work in stabilising and significantly enhancing the organisation. We also maintain a strong working relationship with the CEO, Nombulelo Guliwe, and are especially encouraged by the composition and activism of the new board.

Moving beyond platitudes and rhetoric, the time has come to roll up our sleeves, collaborate closely, and devise practical action plans that can be clearly communicated to and executed by the trade. This alignment will enable us to transition from solo furrow-ploughing, to finally hunting as a pack.

The industry is filled with individuals who have keen and deep insights. What we require are robust modalities and mechanisms that allow us to leverage this expertise effectively and bleed these into the divisional business plans of SA Tourism.

When good ideas emerge that resonate with our target markets and have the potential to drive meaningful results, we must be ready to implement them with speed.

If we truly believe that tourism is South Africa’s primary growth sector, we must act with the urgency and boldness that this conviction demands. We cannot afford to tinker around the edges or settle for mediocre results if we are to unlock the transformative power of tourism and position South Africa as a global destination of choice.

The time is now, and the responsibility is ours. Let’s get to work.